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Garret Nesler drove for about 12 hours over 731 miles to save a child. He thought he was just taking a family vacation from Chesapeake, Ohio, to visit his sick brother and his boyhood home in Holmen. Nevertheless, on Wednesday, July 9, he learned he was in Holmen for an even greater purpose — to help save a 3-year-old boy from drowning.
“God knew what he was doing,” Nesler said. “I give it to the glory of God that I was there and that little boy is OK.”
Nesler and his wife and two children were at the Holmen Aquatic Center Wednesday afternoon. Around 2 p.m. Nesler was getting his exercise by walking around in the water while his children, ages 9 and 7, played. He said he thought he was about 5 feet from the edge of the pool in 4-feet deep water and noticed something that didn’t sit well with him.
“I was walking in the pool and looked over and noticed a few kids about 8 to 10 years old playing around this other kid under the water,” Nesler said. He thought he saw one little girl holding the small boy but had let him go. He thought he heard the group of kids say "he’s playing dead."
“But he really looked limp to me,” Nesler said. “He was really blue. I went in and got him.”
A big man at 6-foot-5, Nesler had no problem lifting him out and putting him on the side of the pool. When Nesler had the little guy out of the water, he waved one arm to get the lifeguard to hurry.
“I could see there wasn’t much time. He needed help fast,” Nesler said. “I pulled him out of the water and started praying for him.”
Lifeguards put him on the deck of the pool and started administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Nesler said very quickly two women came to ask if they could help.
“As soon as I got the boy over to the side of the pool, the lifeguard had about 20 seconds before one lady barged in and started mouth-to-mouth. Another lady that came by said she was a nurse and asked ‘Can I help?’ and she started chest compressions. They revived him before the first responders got there.
“The real special people were those two ladies who jumped in,” Nesler continued. “Thank God they were there. They stayed right with him the whole time, even when the first responders got there.”
While waiting for the first responders, everyone watched nervously for the little boy to start breathing again, according to Nesler. It was a big relief to everyone there when the boy started spitting water out.
“When he started spitting up water, I just said, “There it is!’ Shortly after that, he started crying pretty hard. I knew he would be OK.”
Nesler’s wife Teresa started praying as soon as she saw the boy in her husband’s arms.
“As soon as I saw the boy and how blue he was, I started praying,” Teresa said. “When I heard water spitting out of him, I was jumping for joy.”
Teresa said she had gone over to comfort the daycare provider that had lost track of him.
“She told me she had been frantically looking for him; he had just disappeared.” Teresa said the daycare provider had gone over to look over in the sand area thinking he might have gotten over there. The provider came back to the pool area just in time to see them lifting him out of the water.
“She was a wreck,” Teresa said. “She was so upset. So was everyone else. I was praying to God to calm down the two women who were trying to revive the boy. They were nervous and shaking, too.”
The Neslers could not confirm the story in last week’s Tribune that said two children were trying to drag the small child out of the water.
“I don’t know what happened before I came upon it,” Garret said. “They might have been dragging him over to the edge of the pool, but it looked to me and everyone else like they were playing with him.”
However, the important thing, said Holmen Parks and Recreation Director Mike Brogan, is that the boy is alive.
“The biggest thing is the child was released from the hospital, is doing well and was playing the next morning,” Brogan said. “That helped put the lifeguards at ease that everything was OK.”
Brogan said the lifeguards were getting ready to switch stations and one of the guards stayed because he had been watching the situation and things didn’t necessarily look right. Brogan would not name the lifeguards involved.
Brogan said the lifeguard reported there were “probably four or five other kids around the child, there was a girl that did initially picked him up and then the adult lifted him out of there. The guard blew a triple-whistle,” which indicates a save is in progress.
Brogen said there were approximately 17 lifeguards on duty at the time of the incident, although not all were outside on the pool grounds.
Brogan said the unfortunate incident should be a reminder to everyone about pool safety. He said there were about 200-250 patrons at the pool at that time and that it happened at the island area.
Brogan said the staff often get complaints about the rules stating small children have to be within an arm’s length of an adult and that small children with babysitters as young as 12 are not allowed at the pool.
“But this is exactly why we don’t allow that,” he said. “Little kids like that get into areas where they can’t stay afloat. This reemphasizes why we have those rules. This was a case of a young child in a place where he’s not supposed to be. The supervision rules are very important. With young children, you have to be out there with them.”
Brogan said that people need to be reminded to always be on the lookout for each other.
“Everybody is a lifeguard in a sense,” he said. “Watch out for each other. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is your babysitter.”
The newspaper was unable to obtain comment from the parents of the small boy, the daycare provider or the two women who helped.
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